Happiness And A White Picket Fence
by forensicpathologistninja
Summary: He promised her that he'd make her scream his name one day.


Happiness and a White Picket Fence

READ THIS OR YOU WON'T UNDERSTAND THIS FIC!: This little what-if scenario popped into my mind the other day. The story-line isn't really explained, so I decided to explain it here:

When Keith tracked down Woody, Sheriff Lamb drove Woody and his pilot back to Neptune in the police car, and Keith, as the only other person with a pilot's license was left to fly the plane back home. So Keith died when Cassidy blew up the plane, but Woody lived, and ended up escaping from the county jail. A couple years later, Lamb finds him again, with Veronica and Logan's help. They face off in a warehouse, where Lamb, Leo, and Weevil get shot, then Woody turns his gun on Logan. This story starts about two years after Lilly's death (which is right around the time Duncan fled with baby Lilly) and ends outside of the warehouse.

* * *

He promised her he'd make her scream. It was two years and 21 days after Lilly's murder, and the very first time they'd ever gone this far, and they are both too full of ghosts to scream the correct name when they finally find release. And a half hour later, laying together, not in the after_glow_, because there was nothing of the light left in either of them, but certainly in the after-_something_, he promises her that it will not always be like this, that one day he will make her scream his name.

Years later she will remember smiling because she didn't really believe him and didn't know what else to do. Years later, she will wonder if perhaps he also promised her bitter pretty lies, like '_It will be okay'_, and '_We won't always miss them this much'_. She thinks he probably did not, because though he is many things (obligatory psychotic jackass, crazy ex-boyfriend, drunk, town miscreant), he was never a liar. Not to her at least, and this is a fact that she will never know whether to find solace or sadness in.

After that first time, they don't see each other for a week. Partly because they're masters of avoidance, and partly because they really are busy. But then, on the 8th day they've been apart, they come together again, and she sobs when he makes her come, but there is no screaming.

They do not make love. That is something for lovers and romantics and they are too disillusioned to be either. When he fucks her, it is always anger and sadness and fear, and they cannot look each other in the eye, before, during, or afterwards.

Time goes on and their relationship (if you could call it that) progresses. They are something now, still mostly bitter, but the sweet is there too. They are not falling in _love_, but they are falling into _something_, and secretly they each think it could be something beautiful.

They are 22 when they get married. 22, married, friends now, but still not in love (sometimes they think perhaps this is because they never learned what love was). They are not happy, but they are not desolate or alone either, and that it what counts. They are there for each other, and this may be the closest thing to love either of them will ever know.

But still she does not scream for him, because she is afraid that if she opens her mouth, she will tell him she loves him, and then he will leave her, just like everyone else she's loved has. _LillyMomDadDuncanLynnMegPiz_ and even _CassidyandDick_. And he does not say anything to her about it, but later, when she's cleaning up, he will cry a little for the woman she might have become, if things had worked out differently.

They are 24 when she finally gives in, and screams her little heart out for him. But they are not in the bedroom (or on the table, or counter, or in the tub or pool…), they are outside an abandoned warehouse three miles off the PCH, and everything about this is _wrong_.

She can tell that, despite everything, despite the fact that he's seen Woody shoot three people today already, despite the fact that Woody is obviously insane, despite the fact that Woody's doing this to get away with raping his entire team, Logan still doesn't believe Woody will shoot him. But she knows, with a sickening surety, that he is wrong. And then, before she has a chance to do anything about it, he is wrong and dead, and the little part of her that had been barely holding on to the world after she watched Cassidy blow up her father's plane was ripped away with him.

She sees the gun, hears the _bang_, and though the gun isn't aimed her way, she feels the bullet rip through her own chest. "LOGAN!" she screams. _(he always promised her she'd scream his name)_. And then, sitting on the cold concrete, holding his fading body to her, she says it. Because she can't know for sure if this is indeed the trump card, the thing that pushes everyone away, but she can't bear to let him leave without hearing it.

"I love you."

And she does. And when his eyes slide shut for the final time, he takes much more of what's left of her than anyone else ever has (and much more than she'd thought she had left). And so they just lay there, two empty shells with nothing left to sustain them anymore.

They were never made for happiness and a white picket fence.


End file.
